The Vertex of Love

hprweb.com/2012/10/the-vertex-of-love/

Jonathan Fleischmann

When Mary was predestined in one and the same decree with Jesus Christ by the design of Godbefore
the creation of angels or the universe, and before the existence of sin or evilshe was predestined to be
the Spouse of the Holy Spirit to hold within herself all the love of creation.

Loves Mechanics
In the return of all created things to God the Father (cf. Jn 1, 1; 16, 28), the equal and contrary reaction, says
St. Maximilian Kolbe, proceeds inversely from that of creation. In creation, the saint goes on to say, the action
of God proceeds from the Father through the Son and the Spirit, while in the return, by means of the Spirit, the
Son becomes incarnate in (the Virgin Marys) womb and through Him, love returns to the Father. 1 The Saint of
Auschwitz goes on:

In the union of the Holy Spirit with her, not only does love bind these two beings, but the first of
them (the Holy Spirit) is all the love of the Most Holy Trinity, while the second (the Blessed Virgin
Mary) is all the love of creation, and thus in that union heaven is joined to earth, the whole heaven
with the whole earth, the whole of Uncreated Love with the whole of created love: this is the vertex
of love. 2

Loves Equilibrium
The form of the diagram shown in Figure 1 is not found in the work of St. Maximilian. However, it accurately
represents the state of equal and opposite action and reaction, that occurs when two bodies make contact. In
this case, the bodies represent heaven and earth: the uncreated and created orders, God and his creation.
The first point I would like to make is that the state of equal and opposite contact forces in Newtonian mechanics
requires force equilibrium. It may then seem very wrong to use an image like this one, because how can the
state shown between God and his creation be in equilibrium? Isnt Gods act of love so much greater than the
return of his creation that no equilibrium would be possible? This would certainly be the case if it were not for
Emmanuel, that is, God with us. Jesus, who is truly man, and truly God, belongs to both the created and
uncreated orders simultaneously. In his person, Jesus is both the son of Mary, fully human and like us in all
ways except sin, and the Eternal Son of God the Father, infinite and equal in all ways to the Triune God.

1/30
Figure 1: The return of all created things to God the Father.

Thus, the love of Jesus, the Word Made Flesh who is God, is by itself enough to balance the love of God.
However, there is even more in the equation of loves equilibrium than the love of the Son, infinite and sufficient
in itself, though it is. According to St. Maximilian, the perfect love of the Trinity meets an adequate response in
the perfect love of the Immaculate, which is the name St. Maximilian gives to the Blessed Virgin Mary. How is it
possible that Divine Love can find an adequate response in the love of a creature? It is possible precisely
because of the name that the Virgin Mary can claim for herself. In 1854, the Blessed Virgin Mary proclaimed to
St. Bernadette Soubirous: I am the Immaculate Conception. In the words of St. Maximilian, the Blessed Virgin
is the created Immaculate Conception, as in the words of St. Bonaventure, the Holy Spirit is the uncreated
Immaculate Conception. 3 The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and the Son ,as the perfect and infinite love
between the Father and the Son in the eternal interior life of the Blessed Trinity. Thus, the Holy Spirit is truly all
the love of the Most Holy Trinity. The Holy Spirit is also called the Complement of the Blessed Trinity, because
he is the completion of the Trinity, not in number (quantitatively), but in essence (qualitatively).

When Mary was predestined in one and the same decree with Jesus Christ, 4 by the design of Godbefore the
creation of angels or the universe, and before the existence of sin or evilshe was predestined to be the Spouse
of the Holy Spirit. So she was predestined to hold within herself all the love of creation. Thus, St. Maximilian
says that the Blessed Virgin Mary inserted into the love of the Most Holy Trinity becomes, from the very first
moment of her existence, always, forever, the Complement of the Most Holy Trinity. We may paraphrase the
thoughts of St. Maximilian Kolbe on the spousal relationship between the Holy Spirit, and the Blessed Virgin
Mary, in the words of Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner:

In virtue of this spousal union formally denoted by the title, Complement, Mary is able to enter, as

2/30
 no other, into the order of the hypostatic union, her soul being wholly divinized, because by the
grace of the Immaculate Conception, it has been transubstantiated into the Holy Spirit. 5

It is for this reason that Marythough she is a creature in both her person and her natureis herself the
created Immaculate Conception, and, therefore, all the love of creation. She can actually provide an adequate
response to the love of the Holy Spirit, who is the uncreated Immaculate Conception, and, therefore, all the Love
of God. Thus, the equation of loves equilibrium is balanced again.

Now that we have balanced the equation of loves equilibrium twice over, we could certainly stop. However,
there is reason to continue. St. Maximilian does not expressly mention St. Joseph in the context of these
reflections. However, the diagram in Figure 1, based entirely on the saints own reflections, certainly suggests
the presence of St. Joseph in the order of the response of creation to God the Father. The order of Father, Son,
and, Holy Spirit, shown in the diagram, reflects the order of Gods loving act of creation. This was initiated by the
zeal of the Father, designed by the wisdom of the Son, and effected by the action of the Holy Spirit. This is the
order referred to by St. Maximilian when he says that: the equal and contrary reaction (i.e., the return of all
creation to God) proceeds inversely from that of creation. We see this reflection in the diagram, where the
reaction force of love is inverted, and the order of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as the action force, is reversed
to give the order of Holy Spirit, Son, and Father.

Notice, however, that in the return to God, it is creation that is reacting. Thus, the individuals reactingwhile
reflecting the Holy Spirit, Son, and Father to greater or lesser degreesare all creatures. We have Mary, who is
the perfect similitude (St. Bonaventure), transparent icon (St. Maximilian), or even quasi-incarnation (St.
Maximilian) of the Holy Spirit, but who is still a created person, with a created human nature. We have Jesus,
who is the Word Incarnate, the same Person as the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, but who is still in
possession of a created human nature. St. Maximilian stops here, but must we stop here? I would dare to say
that the analogy we have carried out so far on the inspiration of St. Maximilian suggests an obvious completion.
We have St. Joseph, who has been called the perfect icon of God the Father by more than one saint. 6 In the
words of Fr. Joachin Ferrer Arellano:

In the light of the Scotistic thesis on the Primacy of Christ, to take one example, one discovers ()
how the virginal marriage of Mary and Joseph was predestined ante mundi constitutionem
(before the constitution of the world), as an essential part of the one decree of the Incarnation of
the Word in the womb of the Immaculate ante praevisa merita (before any consideration of
antecedent merit). Such is the saving plan, the mystery hidden before the ages in God, (cf. Eph
3:9) to be accomplished at the high point in the history of salvation. That high point is the fullness
of time (cf. Gal 4:4) when God sent his Son into the most pure bosom of Holy Mary Ever Virgin,
espoused to a man of the house of David (cf. Lk 1:26) in fulfillment of the prophecy of Nathan.
God acted thus, that through the obedience of the Spouses of Nazareth the Son might be freely
welcomed into history on behalf of all mankind in order to save it. This welcome took place in the
virginal womb of Mary, the Daughter of Zion, and in the house of Joseph, in the family home
established by the marriage of the two Spouses (Mary and Joseph), sanctuary of love and cradle
of life. This is the theological foundation of the holy Patriarchs greatness as virginal, messianic
father of the Only-begotten of the Father: shadow and transparent icon of Him who wished to
make Joseph unique partaker of his fatherhood in order to prepare the human nature of Christ for
the holocaust of Calvary. In this way, He made Joseph Father and Lord of the Church gushing
forth from Christs opened side and born of the sword of sorrow of the Woman. 7

In addition to being the transparent icon of God the Father, St. Joseph was the true, virginal husband of the
Blessed Virgin Mary. 8 In fact, it can even be said that St. Joseph is the virginal father of Jesus Christ. For,
again in the words of Fr. Joachin Ferrer Arellano:

3/30
 Although singular, unique, and not univocal with fatherhood as this is ordinarily understood and
commonly found among men, the position more common and traditional among theologians
upholds the truly real fatherhood of Joseph in relation to Jesus, based 1) on his marriage to Mary,
the Mother of Jesus, and 2) on the right of the husband over his wife. He, therefore, who is born
virginally of Mary, by reason of his birth, intimately pertains in some manner to Joseph as father.
In view of the dignity of Joseph as husband of Mary, to whom belongs the fruit of his wifes
womb, one is not permitted to overlook how the indivisible virginity of both spousesnot simply
that of Mary, but also that of her husband, the son of Davidis ordered to the virginal fatherhood
of Joseph according to the Spirit, in virtue of the obedience of faith to the saving plan of God. This
plan includes the messianic fatherhood of Joseph as son of David in relation to his virginal Son,
constituted Son of David, the messianic King, because He was Son of Joseph. 9

In the return of all created things to God the Father, it is under the leadership, and in imitation of, St. Joseph, our
patriarch, that the individual members of the Church must, by the merits gained for us through the redemptive
sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, be transubstantiated into Mary, who is the Virgo Ecclesia
Facta (Virgin-Made-Church). 10 It is only by being transubstantiated into Mary, the created Immaculate
Conception, that we can be united to God as she is uniquely united to God, being transubstantiated with her into
the uncreated Immaculate Conception, who is the Holy Spirit. In virtue of this transubstantiation, we are
possessed by the Immaculate, and we are thereby formed into a single community, or Church, sharing her
personality. To St. Maximilian, this is the only way that we can be members of Christs Church, and thereby
united to God. In the words of Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner:

To this dynamic union of love in which not only the being of the Holy Spirit and that of Mary are united, but the
entire love of heaven and that of earth touch, merge and become one so as to culminate in the Incarnation, in
the birth of the Son of God, the Man-God, and then in the incorporation of the members of the Church into that
Body conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Saint of Niepokalanow and Auschwitz (St. Maximilian Kolbe)
ascribes the fecundity of the Holy Spirit, precisely because Complement of Father and Son. Whence the
importance of Marys possession of those who wish to be incorporated into Christ, conformed to him in life and in
death: except through her it cannot be achieved (emphasis added). This mysterious mutual possession, then, is
the basis of all other cooperation in the work of salvation, the reason for rejecting the Protestant solus, and
passive ecclesio-typology, and affirming the universal Marian mediation of grace or active ecclesio-typology. 11

Thus, in accordance with St. Maximilians principle of action and reaction, what was first reversed in the order of
Gods creative act, in the fullness of time, in the objective order of salvation, is reversed again in the subjective
order of salvation. What was first reversed in the objective order of salvation means that, through the action of
the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ was incarnate of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and became man, and through him, love
returned to the Father. What was reversed again in the subjective order of salvation means that, in imitation of
our patriarch and leader, St. Joseph, through the merits gained for us by the redemptive sacrifice of Jesus on
Calvary, we can be transubstantiated into the Immaculate, and thereby form one Church, sharing her personality.
Consequently, we share in her unique union with God in eternity, which is the Beatific Vision. This can be
illustrated in the diagram shown in Figure 1, if one imagines traveling from the top of the diagram to the bottom,
and then returning from the bottom of the diagram to the top again.

Loves Vertex
Our final meditation on the diagram shown in Figure 1 is the point of contact between heaven and earth, the
vertex of love, where all the love of God, and all the love of creation, meet and are joined: in that union heaven
is joined to earth, the whole heaven with the whole earth, the whole of Uncreated Love with the whole of created
love. 12 This point of contact, between the whole heaven and the whole earth, is, according to St. Maximilian,
the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Why is this? Why is the vertex of love not the
Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is love? Indeed, the Saint of Auschwitz has been sharply
criticized, and even ridiculed by some theologians, for what they have called a heresy along the lines of that of
Joachim of Fiore. 13 It is claimed that, by making the vertex of love the Immaculate Conception, the centrality of
the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is denied. However, precisely the opposite is true. For, in the
4/30
words of Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner:

Today, this joachimite tendency generally reveals itself in constant anxiety about Catholic
proneness to exaggerate Mary, and a downplaying (emphasis added) of the active role of Mary
in the work of salvation as Mother of God, and co-redemptress so as to exalt the mediation of
the Holy Spirit as principal co-redemptor (and for some mother) of whom Mary is but the
instrument (as are we), or so as to speak of the suffering of the Father. But such historical
trends have always been the prelude of Unitarianism: not an affirmation of the Trinity, but its
denial, a denial which must ultimately lead to some form of pantheism. The significance of St.
Maximilians reflections on the Holy Spirit, and Mary, and of his preferred terminology cannot be
underestimated. 14

It is the relationship of Mary to her Divine Son, which is the relationship of Mother of God, or Theotokos, which is
the source of all her dignity, unparalleled among creatures. This dignity so far transcends the dignity of every
other created being as to make her a quasi-part of the Blessed Trinity. It is in this very dignity, however, that
the Incarnation of Jesus Christ is central, which is why St. Maximilian Kolbes reflections on the Blessed Virgin
Mary are directly opposed to the joachimite heresy. Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner paraphrases St. Maximilian Kolbe
on this subject as follows:

Thus, Marys self-definition is: I am the Immaculate Conception. Only Mary can say this,
because only of Mary Immaculate, jointly predestined with Christ for an absolute primacy in
creation, can it be said that the whole world and each of us was made for her. 15 Therefore, of
no other just person can it be said as it was said to Mary The Lord is with thee. 16 For no other
than the Immaculate can be Mother of God (emphasis added). Indeed, she remains only a
creature; nonetheless in virtue of the Immaculate Conception she far transcends the supernatural
perfection of even the greatest saints and of all the saints together, for as quasi-part of the
Trinity, she not only participates in the divine perfections, she is inserted into the very bosom of
the Trinity and into the order of the Incarnation. 17 18 To be part of the Trinity, then, in so
singular a way revolves about the divine Maternity, and by extension the spiritual maternity as
well. For in loving the Immaculate the divine Persons love us. 19

In the famous Roman conference of 1937, St. Maximilian defined sanctity with an equation: S: v = V. The letter
S stands for sanctity, the lowercase letter v stands for the will of a creature, and the uppercase letter V
stands for the will of God. It is Mary Immaculate who is the perfect image, or icon, of sanctity, because it is only
she who satisfies Kolbes equation. We may add with the Saint: perfect sanctity is perfect charity or Immaculate
Conception. 20 This is the meaning of the vertex of love, and why that vertex is the Immaculate Conception,
rather than the Incarnation. Mary is a created person, and yet her will is perfectly united to the will of God: v =
V. In the words of St. Maximilian:

The Immaculate, the full of grace, was always united to the will of God. From all eternity, she was
in the thought of God who had willed her so holy and perfect, to correspond with his will in a
manner so complete. Hence, we can say that to do the will of God, means to do the will of the
Immaculate, and to do the will of the Immaculate means to do the will of God, because she is
always united to God: the Lord is with thee; because she is always docile to the call of God: be it
done to me; because she is always solicitous for the glory of God, always adoring, praising and
thanking: my soul magnifies the Lord. 21

5/30
We know well from St. Thomas Aquinas that love is in the will. 22 Thus, in the equation, v = V, we see that all
the love of creation (in the will of the Immaculate Virgin Mary) is united to all the love of the Most Holy Trinity (in
the will of the Holy Spirit), and, in the words of St. Maximilian, in that union heaven is joined to earth, the whole
heaven with the whole earth, the whole of Uncreated Love with the whole of created love: this is the vertex of
love. 23

Oh sweet heart of Mary, be our salvation.

Ave Maria!

1. SK 1318. All citations from the writings of St. Maximilian Kolbe in this paper, with the exception of the

6/30
Roman Conferences, are abbreviated SK and taken from Scritti di Massimiliano Kolbe (Roma 1997).

7/30
2. Ibid.
3. Regarding the Mysteries of the interior life of the Blessed Trinity, St. Bonaventure said that the Son can be
properly said to be a conceived, but only the Holy Spirit can be properly said to be conception (in I
Sent.). St. Maximilian added the word Immaculate (perfect, holy) to the name given the Holy Spirit by

8/30
 St. Bonaventure, an addition St. Bonaventure would surely have approved.
4. The following is an excerpt taken from the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius IX Ineffabilis Deus, issued
on December 8, 1854, in which the Holy Father solemnly declared the Dogma of the Immaculate
Conception: From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for
his only-begotten Son a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the
blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world. Above all creatures did God so love her that
truly in her was the Father well pleased with singular delight. Therefore, far above all the angels and all
the saints so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all heavenly gifts poured from the
treasury of his divinity that this mother, ever absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would
possess that fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine
anything greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in comprehending fully. And hence
the very words with which the Sacred Scriptures speak of Uncreated Wisdom and set forth his eternal
origin, the Church, both in its ecclesiastical offices and in its liturgy, has been wont to apply likewise to the
origin of the Blessed Virgin, inasmuch as God, by one and the same decree, had established the origin of
Mary and the Incarnation of Divine Wisdom. Here Blessed Pope Pius IX makes use both of the Scotistic
thesis on the Absolute Joint Primacy of Jesus and Mary, both of whose existence were ordained before
Gods act of creation and before any consideration of original sin (cf. R. Rosini, O.F.M., Mariology of
Blessed John Duns Scotus, translated by P. Fehlner, F.I., New Bedford 2008), and the formulation of St.
Anselm, who said that Mary shines with a purity greater than which none can be imagined (De

9/30
Conceptione Virginis).

10/30
5. P. Fehlner, F.I., St. Maximilian Ma. Kolbe, Martyr of Charity Pneumatologist (New Bedford, 2004).
6. St. Theresa of Avila and St. Bernadette Soubirous are among these (cf. A. Doz, Le mystre de Saint
Joseph rvle a deux femmes: Therse (dAvila) et Bernadette, in Actas simposio de Kevelaer 2005), as

11/30
 well as St. Peter Julian Eymard (Month of St. Joseph).
7. J. Ferrer Arellano, The Virginal Marriage of Mary and Joseph according to Bl. John Duns Scotus, in Bl.
John Duns Scotus and His Mariology, Commemoration of the Seventh Centenary of His Death, Acts of the

12/30
 Symposium on Scotus Mariology, Grey College, Durham England (New Bedford, 2009).
8. Blessed John Duns Scotus and St. Maximilian Kolbe are both clear on this point, as are many other
saints, including Blessed Pope John Paul II (cf. Redemptoris Custos). The fact that Mary is the Spouse of
the Holy Spirit, and the fact that their perfect spousal love results in Marys transubstantiation into the Holy
Spirit, does not imply that the Holy Spirit is the husband of Mary, or that the Holy Spirit is the father of
Jesus. To approach an understanding of the perfect spousal union of love between the Holy Spirit and
Mary, it must be understood that highest experience of spousal love, which is between husband and wife
within the holy sacrament of marriage, is but an imperfect reflection of the source of spousal love, which is
the Love between the Father and the Son in the Blessed Trinity, both of Whom in the inner life of the
Trinity are, of course, without gender in the human sense of the term. This Perfect Spousal Love is the
Holy Spirit, and it is as a fruit of this Spousal Love that the Blessed Virgin Mary is one with the Holy Spirit;
transubstantiated into the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit quasi-incarnate. (P. Fehlner, St. Maximilian Ma.

13/30
Kolbe, Martyr of Charity)

14/30
 9. J. Ferrer Arellano, The Virginal Marriage of Mary and Joseph
10. The title Virgo Ecclesia Facta, or Virgin-Made-Church is applied to the Blessed Virgin by St. Francis of
15/30
Assisi in his Antiphon for the Office of the Passion (cf. J. Schneider, O.F.M., Virgo Ecclesia Facta: The
Presence of Mary in the Crucifix of San Damiano and in the Office of the Passion of St. Francis of Assisi,
New Bedford 2004). The phrase transubstantiation into the Immaculate, though surprising, is used
twice by St. Maximilian Kolbe to describe the total consecration to the Immaculate he demanded of his
priests (cf. A. Geiger, F.I., Marian Mediation as Presence and Transubstantiation into the Immaculate, in
Mary at the Foot of the Cross III: Mater Unitatis, Acts of the Third International Symposium on Marian

16/30
Coredemption, New Bedford 2003).

17/30
11. P. Fehlner, St. Maximilian Ma. Kolbe, Martyr of Charity

18/30
12. SK 1318
13. Joachim of Fiore was a theologian (c. 1135 1202) who de-emphasized the central role of the Incarnation
in the Salvific Order. His theories were declared heretical at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and at the

19/30
Synod of Arles (1263).

20/30
14. P. Fehlner, St. Maximilian Ma. Kolbe, Martyr of Charity

21/30
15. SK 1305.

22/30
16. SK 1295

23/30
17. SK 1320; 1305; 1295; 1288.
18. Father Fehlner continues: While this personal communion or inexistence of the Holy Spirit and Mary
Immaculate is absolutely unique in its perfection (a hierarchy or sacred order of its own kind), it is
nonetheless the ontological basis making possible the sanctification of the Church as Bride of Christ, as
sharing in the redemptive sacramentality of the Incarnation. This mediation of Mary qua created
Immaculate Conception is the source of that mystical personality of the Church qua Bride, a personality of
virgin and mother underlying and permeating every other dimension of the Church, including the petrine,
hierarchical, sacramental-liturgical. (P. Fehlner, St. Maximilian Ma. Kolbe, Martyr of Charity) See also
J. Ferrer Arellano, The Triple and Inseparable Mediation of the Immaculate, the Eucharist and the Petrine
Ministry in the Building Up of the Church Until the Parousia (The Three Whites), in Mary at the Foot of
the Cross VI: Marian Coredemption in the Eucharistic Mystery, Acts of the Sixth International Symposium

24/30
on Marian Coredemption (New Bedford, 2007).

25/30
19. P. Fehlner, St. Maximilian Ma. Kolbe, Martyr of Charity

26/30
20. Ibid.
21. St. Maximilian Kolbe, in Roman Conferences of St. Maximilian M. Kolbe, translated with introduction and

27/30
notes byFr. Peter Damian Ma. Fehlner, F.I. (New Bedford, 2004).

28/30
22. Despite the objections of Dietrich von Hildebrand (cf. Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Nature of Love).

29/30
23. SK 1318.

30/30